Come Here To Me!

Recently, we featured a simple enough post on the shopfronts of Dublin. It was the first in an upcoming series, which is intended to highlight the good, the bad and the ugly with regards to the shopfronts of the capital. I made the decision to allow the shopfronts to speak for themselves, and the post received good traffic, and afterwards sparked a few real life conversations with others about the shopfronts of the capital.

An interesting comment on that post came from ‘FXR’ who noted that:

I passed Reads in Parliament street the other day. The boards on the front are starting to rot at the base.

I swung by for a look yesterday, and the shopfront on Parliament Street has fallen into a very tragic state. At the very bottom, where it reads ‘Established in 1670’ on one side and ‘Dublin’s Oldest Shop’ on the other, damage and decay is clear to be seen. Unsurprisingly, the shopfront has been vandalised too.

Above the shop, the sign still hangs proudly, giving some indication of the history of the premises.

The late and great Éamon Mac Thomáis noted in his work Me Jewel and Darlin’ Dublin that “Thomas Read of 4 Parliament Street was established in 1670, and are one of the oldest cutlers in the world”, and Read’s was the oldest shop in Dublin prior to its closure some years ago. It’s a real shame to see such an historically important building fall into this condition. Of course, restoration takes money, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to see this one restored to a former glory?

Éamon Mac Thomáis inside the shop:

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“The Dublin Front”, to which Free State aeroplanes were reported to be going: The scene of the republicans last stand- Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) from O’Connell Bridge.”

Another great piece of foreign media coverage of the 1913-22 period in Dublin, this time the front page of the London Illustrated News of July 8 1922.

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Mike Quill is one of the most celebrate trade unionists in American history, remembered for the actions of his militant New York union of underground workers. The title of L.L Whittemore’s biography is quite fitting, describing him as “the man who ran the Subways”. His offer to finance the removal of Admiral Nelson from the Pillar in O’Connell Street is a great story, which we detail below.

Mike Quill shaking the hand of Martin Luther King at a Transport Workers conference. (Transport Workers Archive)

Mike Quill is a truly fascinating figure in both republican and trade union history. Born in County Kerry in 1905, he was active with the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence, and his name appears in Kerry’s Fighting Story, documenting the war there. Quill’s family were deeply republican, and his role in the war was that of a dispatch rider. He was active with the Kerry no.2 Brigade.

Mike Quill took an active role in the Civil War, opposing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and participating in the capture of Kenmare by republican forces. In a 2002 address at a Siptu conference in Kerry, labour historian Manus O’Riordain noted that ‘during those years Mike Quill also had his first experience of industrial struggle when he and his brother John were fired for staging a sit-in strike in a Kenmare saw-mill.’

Like many men who had fought in the Civil War, Quill was to settle in the United States, arriving in 1926. Quill found himself employed with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), having first worked a variety of jobs. The IRT were the private operator of the New York underground of the day, and Quill was among the men to bring the Transport Workers Union of America into existence in April 1934. Quill would go on to become one of the most influential and capable union leaders of his time, organising men who worked on the New York underground.

Many of the workers around the new union were Irish migrants, and indeed many, like Quill, had been veterans of the revolutionary period. As historian Brian Hanley has noted:

It was a combination of former IRA veterans, among them Quill and Gerald O’Reilly, members of the Clan na Gael, activists in the Communist Irish Workers Clubs and the American Communist Party itself which proved crucial to the foundation of the TWU.

‘Red Mike Quill’ would become one of the leading trade unionists of his time, and it should be said that Quill was a passionate supporter of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Dr. Martin Luther King was the keynote speaker at the 1961 convention of the TWU, and in a 1956 letter to King from the leaders of the TWU it was noted that:

Once again we want to take this opportunity to congratulate you for the mature and courageous leadership you have given not only to the people of Alabama but all Americans in the fight to wipe out the scourge of segregation from our national life.

Quill’s union, in 1964, extended a rather unusual offer to the people of Dublin when he offered to finance the removal of Admiral Nelson from O’Connell Street.

Dubliners pass the remains of Nelsons Pillar following the explosion in March 1966. (NLI)

In January 1964, Quill made the offer on behalf of the Transport Union “cheerfully to finance the removal of Lord Nelson”. He made the offer in a letter to the Taoiseach, and it was responded to publicly by Sean Moore, then Lord Mayor of Dublin. The Irish Times reported the Lord Mayor as stating that the Corporation had no power to remove Nelson, as the monument was under the guardianship of trustees.

The Irish Times noted that Quill said his union would pay for the removal of Nelson from his pedestal and his transportation to Buckingham Palace, where he said Nelson was “respected and loved for his many and victorious gallant battles on behalf of the British Crown.” Quill wrote that he believed the statue gave the impression to visitors, owing to its sheer scale, that to the Irish it meant what the Statue of Liberty meant to Americans. Quill suggested a statue of Patrick Pearse, James Connolly or Jim Larkin be placed on top of the pillar instead of Nelson. As a compromise, “since there are two governments in Ireland today”, Quill suggested President John F. Kennedy as a statue to place in the centre of O’Connell Street. Kennedy had been assassinated only months prior in November 1963, and discussions were under way regarding a potential monument for Kennedy in Ireland.

Quill noted that his union were willing to finance the removal of Admiral Nelson “in a dignified manner and without hatred or rancour on the part of anybody.”

The Lord Mayor of Dublin “thanked Quill for his offer” the newspaper noted. Surely the offer of the radical New York subway workers union to remove Nelson from his vantage point is one of the most unusual chapters in the story of Nelson’s Pillar? Just over two years on from the offer, the monument was of course targeted by militant republicans.

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Two interesting pages here, showing British coverage of the rebellion in Dublin. Notice that James Connolly is listed as “leader of the Sinn Féiners”. The pages come from my own family collection, and are an interesting insight into the way the rebellion was reported. I’d welcome information on the publication.

Backed by a modicum of German gold (and German promises) several hundred Sinn Féiners attempted to seize the city by armed force, wreaking great damage to private property, and killing a number of citizens, including women and children. The rebellion was captained by James Connolly, and supported by one or two personalities of a revolutionary temperament.

The second pages notes that these amazing scenes of damage are “not somewhere in France or Flanders” but rather Dublin. The image of a looted florists on Grafton Street is one I haven’t seen before.

‘The First and Last of the Dublin Revolt’. Notice Connolly identified as ‘Leader of the Sinn Féiners’. (Fallon collection)

Damage to the city of Dublin following the rising. (Fallon collection)

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A fantastic, well-researched 24 page document by artist Sean Lynch in which he focusing on a selection of Dublin monuments that have been “used and abused” down the years. Those featured are The Crampton Memorial, The Bowl of Light, Nelson’s Pillar, James Joyce’s Tower, Sean’s Spiral, Anna Livia  and  the Millennium Countdown Clock. All of whom have been removed for a variety of reasons.

It can be downloaded here.

Lynch wrote the piece in the run up to the unveiling of his Me Jewel & Darlin’ public artwork display on O’Connell Street which ran from January 2011 to April 2012.

A feature from the document

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Saint Werburgh’s Church.

I was recently lucky enough to get inside Saint Werburgh’s Church, which sits on Werburgh Street near to Dublin Castle. It’s a tragedy that the church where Jonathan Swift was baptised and Edward Fitzgerald’s remains are found has fallen into a sad state in places. In a 2009 article in The Irish Times, the Very Rev. Derek Dunne noted that the once glorious church had “…been neglected for decades” and that “Saint Werburgh’s is not ours, it is in the ownership of Dublin. The work needs to be done, it is almost too late.”

In 1715, Commissioners were appointed for the rebuilding of the church, and none other than Surveyor-General Thomas de Burgh was to be the architect to oversee construction of the new church. Thomas de Burgh is an architect of great importance in the capitals history, responsible for example for the Custom House of 1707, along with the library of Trinity College Dublin and Dr. Steevens’ Hospital.

The church contains many items of historical interest, ranging from the bell associated with United Irishman Napper Tandy, which came from Saint John’s Church where he had been a churchwarden, to the fantastic pulpit which was once at home next door in Dublin Castle.

I began looking at the plaques around the church. Normally, Church of Ireland churches in Dublin tend to produce interesting plaques I find, and what I was seeking primarily were monuments to the involvement of men in the parish in the First World War. What I stumbled across however was a very unusual plaque from the 1830s with a fascinating story that connects the church to a young boy shipwrecked upon a Spanish slave ship off the coast of Jamaica.

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These images form just a tiny part of the remarkable collection of 148 images contained in the Dublin City Public Library collection which you can view in full here. 26 Dubliners lost their lives in a series of car bombings carried out across the city.

The photographs are a unique source that gives a vivid picture not just of the devastation caused by the attacks, but of the horror felt by Dubliners after the bombings and the dread that further bombings would take place. The bombings occurred against the background of deep civil unrest in Northern Ireland and at the time there were intense fears in the South that they heralded a spread of paramilitary activity to the Irish Republic.

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